Chhaayaageet #47 - "From now onwards, every film that I make, I will take you only.”
He is into car racing. Just recently he competed in a sports car race in Pune. His mother just passed away and it has been forty days into the mourning period. He is counting days and can't wait to get to the course. He loses the race.
Today is yet another race of his life. His wife is pregnant with their third child and she is about to deliver. She is in deep labor pains. He has to drive her to the hospital in half the time. Life has always been a race for him. He loves to win.
They both want a daughter this time after having 2 sons. The nurse comes out smiling. It's a boy!
The delivery is done but the wife is not normal. She is constantly sick and her recovery lasts several months. He stays busy taking care of her.
In the meantime, nobody takes care for the poor baby. One day he senses something is wrong. The baby is running a high fever and the right arm seems to be stiff too. Yes, something is definitely wrong. He hurries the baby to the hospital.
The doctor runs a diagnosis on the child. The baby's limbs are paralyzed. This could have been prevented if the parents had brought in the kid sooner. The doctor loses his temper. "If you do not know how to take care of your children why do you give birth to them".
He starts weeping like a child. How could he do this? After a few hours, the doctor calls him. "Your child has recovered but he will have to live with paralyzed limbs".
This incident is very disturbing. He is not able to get it out of his mind. He cannot focus on anything else. This will never happen to any other child. He makes a promise. He will make a movie on this disease so no other child will go through the same suffering.
14 years go by.
The movie casting has been done. The key role will be played by his own son. He still walks with a limp and cast in his leg. The only thing remaining is the choice of a composer.
The safe bet is to go with one of the better-known composers who have a good track record. There is a leading composer that he has worked with in the past.
When you are rich and famous, people with talent are constantly trying to get in front of you. He has one of these budding artists planning to come that evening to present his tunes. He hears him out. He is good.
For some reason, he feels like narrating the story of the movie. "First time in my movie, I am putting a lori (lullaby) of a father singing to his young son. Also at a later point, the son sings the same lori to his father while he is on his death bed. Can you come up with a tune for that?"
What an unusual request? This is going to be challenging. How do you come up with such a tune? It needs to be soothing enough to put a baby to sleep. But at the same time, it should be melancholy so that the audience can feel the sadness of his father dying. The composer visualizes the audience in the theater wiping their tears. At the same time, this is a great opportunity for him. It is his debut performance after all.
He goes home and starts working on multiple tunes. Finally, he hits the tune he likes. It's time to go back and present this tune to the director. The director is at first quite ecstatic. But then he starts crying. "From now onwards, every film that I make, I will take you only.”
Mehmood directed the film, Kunwara Baap and offered Rajesh Roshan his first break as a composer. Mehmood went through a tragic incident with his 3rd son, Macky Ali who ended up contracting polio as a kid and was crippled for life. Mehmood blamed himself for what happened. This incident impacted him so much that he decided to make a movie to drive polio awareness. He did not want any other child to go through the same suffering. For the movie Kunwara Baap, Macky Ali played the role of the crippled child.
The film had some comedy adaptations from Charlie Chaplin's movie The Kid, but the underlying message was a serious one about polio vaccination. The film ends with Mehmood getting up after he dies and explaining to the audience that his death was for the camera, but polio is real and deadly and that people should get their children vaccinated. For his comedy scenes in the film, Mehmood did earn a Filmfare nomination as Best Comic.
Rajesh Roshan delivered stellar compositions in his debut film. Apart from this song he composed other hits such as Saj Rahi Gali Meri Maa and Main Hoon Ghoda Yeh Hai Gaadi. One of the first hijra songs, Saj Rahi Gali sung by Mohammed Rafi topped the annual Binaca Geet Mala. Within a year, Rajesh Roshan delivered the hit music for the movie Julie and bagged the Filmfare Best Music Director award.
Mehmood stayed true to his word. For all his subsequent movies he always chose Rajesh Roshan as his composer.
Director: Mehmood
Producer: Amarlal Chabria
Music: Rajesh Roshan
Lyrics: Majrooh Sultanpuri
Singers: Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar, Mehmood
*ing: Mehmood, Macky Ali
Film: Kunwara Baap (1974)